Preparing for NaNo

NaNoWriMo starts on November 1st. That's 39 days away. Only 39 days away. To most people, that's a long time, but in the world of a NaNoWriMo-er, 39 days is all but a fleeting moment.

Last November, I participated in my first NaNoWriMo, despite having known about it for several years. For those of you who don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and it challenges writers to write 50,000 words between 12am November 1st and 11:59pm November 30th. It began in the US (hence National), but it is now an international event. Hundreds of thousands of people participate each year and as a writer, that's an awesome thing. What each writer chooses to write is their choice; original fiction, fanfiction, poetry, prose, a collection of short stories... who cares what it is? They are writing something. It’s something I find myself reminding myself on the odd occasion I fishing for some fanfiction to read. For every really fantastic story, there are ten more that miss their mark. But, at least the authors are writing. And that is an important thing. In fact, it’s the most important thing.

Last year, I missed my mark by some 32,000 words. It still hurts knowing I missed it by such an astronomical amount. It's not because I feel I failed; I didn't - I wrote 18,000 more words than I'd had in October 2012. What hurts is that I didn't meet a personal goal and, as a writer, those goals are important. Those goals are what keep the inspiration flowing and what keep us writing. At least that's how it is for this writer. I can't really speak for my fellow artists.

Yesterday, I came to realize just how much I had neglected my Pangaea Trilogy and that I was in dire need of inspiration for it. Cue the watching of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe". Well, it worked. Inspiration for my Trilogy has come flooding in and I can finally get my characters moving. It’s both exciting and a relief to get back to work on the Trilogy. It’s been about a month since I’ve worked on it and, with NaNoWriMo only 39 days away, I only hope the inspiration sticks around. Come November 1^st, I am going to need every ounce of it. Something tells me I may be turning to the fantasy movies in my DVD library fairly often in the next month and a half. Movies like The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia films and Inkheart. The aforementioned films are integral to keeping the inspiration flowing as long and as intensely as possible.

Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? How are you preparing for it? To those of you participating, good luck!